


mirror mirror hanging on the wall

by RenderedReversed



Series: this ain't no fairytale [12]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A+ Parenting, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon? what's that? can I eat it?, Item Shop AU, Luna Lovegood - dead, M/M, Recettear AU, Worldbuilding, adventurer!Tom, and by A+ I mean 2/10 would not recommend, best read in series order, just throwing that out there, mentions of past sexual abuse, sorcerer!shopkeeper!Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2018-09-19 15:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9448994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenderedReversed/pseuds/RenderedReversed
Summary: If there’s one thing Harry’s learned from Albus, it’s to always have a contingency plan.Meanwhile, Tom doesn’t understand why it’s so important to get these ingredients, but hey, he’s getting paid for this and gets to see a whole new side of Harry…so, win?Or, in which Harry’s disguise is a blonde female elf with a curious pair of radish earrings, and Tom doesn’t understand why Harry’s smile is so sad.





	1. Chapter 1

“He’s...”

“Don’t say it,” Gellert’s voice warns. Harry can practically see the way his mouth curves in displeasure, even though he’s not looking at him.

Igor’s rougher tone answers: “If you’re _thinking_ it, it’s as good as the same. Delusions don’t suit you, friend.”

“Oh, and I suppose you were born with a sword in your mouth?”

“I believe the rumors say _you_ were the one who grew up using a knife as a toothpick.”

“He’ll grow into it,” Gellert says, adamant. Harry feels the sweat dripping down his forehead even more acutely than before; their staring isn’t helping, he wishes to say, but the bark digs into his hands as he clutches it and he keeps quiet.

“Gellert, he’s using a branch.”

“ _I have eyes_.”

“It’s a twig!” Igor hisses. Ha, as if that’s going to stop Harry from hearing them. “It’s not a sword he’s not strong enough to carry, or a blade that’s three-quarters of his height. Face it, he’s—”

“Don’t. Say it.”

Igor sighs, half exasperated and half in disgust. “He’s not fit to be your student,” he finishes, almost like he’s trying to let him down easy.

“I…admit,” Gellert begins, forcing each word out through the narrow gaps of his grinding teeth, “that he’s…”

“Bad,” Igor says. “He’s bad.”

“ _Less than stellar_ ,” Gellert insists. “The boy is learning. Besides, look at that footwork! Solid.” Harry puts a little more force into his next swing, imagining he’s taking someone’s eye out. Even in his imagination he falls too short.

“You don’t swing a sword with your feet.”

“He’s got a good foundation, Igor. I can work with this.”

Igor snorts. “You really can’t.”

Harry wishes they’d just shut up—he’s right here! At the edges of his senses, he feels a small twist of wind magic and immediately knows who’s come to join the party. _Oh, great_ , he thinks sullenly. _More people to see my failure_.

“You really can’t,” Albus Dumbledore parrots. “He’s terrible, Gellert.”

“ _Will you not say it_!” Gellert snarls. “There’s nothing that more training can’t fix. I’ll turn him into the finest spell-sword the world’s ever seen. Mark my words, Albus, he’ll be—”

“He’s not meant to wield a blade,” says Albus, completely unperturbed.

“Oh? Do you imagine he’ll be a better archer?”

Igor sighs and steps away from the conversation.

“An alchemist,” corrects Albus. Harry can envision the way his eyes twinkle upon his reply; he’s never seen the man more happy than when he’s arguing with Gellert. “That is where his specialization lies.”

“None of us know that,” Gellert snaps. “He shows no preference to any category of magic we’ve tested him in. Stop headhunting my student.”

 “Oh, pish-posh. He is _our_ student, and you know just as well as I he isn’t meant for the way of the sword. You can teach him other things.”

“Need I remind you that you vetoed all the rest?”

“Other things that don’t involve massacring his way to victory.”

“It is a viable option. He will be strong enough, given time!”

“I know,” Albus says. “We all know. And that is why—”

“I refuse to sit through another one of your _peace talks_ , you damned hypocrite.”

“Leave war as a necessity and not a habit, Gellert.”

Harry sighs and throws down his twig. “I can hear you, you know!” he says, marching over to them. “It’s distracting. And you either want me to practice or you don’t.”

Unfortunately, either his message isn’t understood or it’s ignored, because both of them look varying levels of pleased. “We had a muffling charm up,” Gellert informs him. “Fascinating. How clearly could you hear?”

“Everything,” says Harry, with all the solemnity a ten-year-old can possibly muster.

“Perhaps he has keyed into our magic signatures,” suggests Albus. “Of course, it is a case only documented between magical twins, but—”

“You imagine the lack of another sorcerer’s presence could have an effect on him?”

“Quite. Or rather, the sudden influence of our magic could’ve overwhelmed his senses, and he adapted accordingly as a survival instinct—”

“I’m still here,” Harry interrupts, nearly begging them. He doesn’t want to sit here for another of their scholarly discussions. He never understands anything and it’s super boring! To make it worse, they talk about him! _Him_ , like he’s not even there!

Gellert glances down as if he’d just noticed him and pats his head. “Of course you are. Harry, you prefer to be my student, don’t you? Albus is terribly unsuited as a teacher. He contradicts himself far too often.”

Albus levels him with a flat stare. “Rather than live a life of delusions. I believe Harry prefers to learn a topic he has some proficiency in—”

“ _Or_ he doesn’t prefer either of you,” Igor says, finally making his presence known again. His gruff manner is only softened by the way he sends Harry a sympathetic look.

Harry giggles. Before the argument can continue, he hears a familiar beat of wings. The shift in the air only makes this calling card even more obvious. “Hedwig!” he exclaims, sticking out one of his arms for his dearest friend.

She lands on it as if it’s the only natural thing to do. “Weather is fair,” she informs him. “No demons around. The tall woman comes.”

He kisses the crown of her head. “I like _you_ best.”

Hedwig sends a smug look toward the other two sorcerers. “Naturally,” she replies and begins to preen herself.

Neither Gellert nor Albus can understand her, but body language is universal.

Albus sighs. “It appears we’ve been usurped.”

“The bird was there first,” Gellert grumbles, both agreeing and arguing in one breath.

Again, Harry feels a twinge of magic, and he knows just who it is.

“Igor,” Hedwig’s ‘tall woman’ calls from behind, “the front-line adventurers have need of your presence.”

Igor inclines his head. “I’ll be there shortly, then. Much thanks, Maxime.” He leaves with a small farewell.

“As for you—” Olympe begins, rounding on Albus, “—the brewers are asking for you.”

Albus smiles. “Ah, is that so? Well, better be off before something explodes. I’ll see you at dinner, Harry, Gellert.”

“Bye, Albus,” Harry says. The wind twists, and he leaves.

“I suppose you have a message for myself as well, Olympe?” Gellert asks, raising a brow.

“No, but seeing as you’re asking, you’re part of the hunting party today,” she replies smoothly. “I believe Harry has had enough time training with sticks as swords. It’s time he practices more useful things, like his knife work.”

They send each other a nasty glare that has Harry shrinking back nervously.

“He’s improving.”

“He’s terrible,” Olympe says with little hesitation. “It is my turn now. We have demon corpses that require harvesting, and regardless of whether he becomes a spell-sword or _not_ —which I think is likely—he’ll need to know how to be self-sufficient.”

Gellert sneers. “Think he’ll be in the back-line, with you?”

“That is where a proper sorcerer belongs, yes.”

They’re just about to come to blows before Hedwig takes flight, violently beating her wings as she hovers between them. “Foolish humans, you’re scaring him!”

Neither understand, but the argument is put to the side for now. Harry breathes a sigh of relief. “See you at dinner?” he asks, tugging on Gellert’s sleeve.

The anger of before is replaced by a charismatic smile. Harry receives a head pat for his troubles. “Of course, Harry. Focus on your lessons now.”

He leaves. Olympe takes his hand. “You will be extracting a demon heart today. Do you remember the theory?”

Harry does, and he dutifully recites it to her as they walk back to camp. “Madam, I’m—” he licks his lips, “—I’m a little nervous.”

Olympe hums and squeezes his hand. “They see your swordsmanship and laugh. Well, they have never seen you with a _knife_ before. You will do well, Harry. I will assist you the first time.”

Hedwig circles above. Harry watches her for a moment, and then bows his head. “Yes, Madam,” he replies, because that’s what she’s expecting.

* * *

This time when Harry wakes up before morning, he’s completely devoid of panic. Instead, he wakes like he breathes—one minute asleep, the next eyes half-lidded and wondering.

He can recall his dream, but he knows that the moment he gets up, it’ll be forgotten again. Sometimes it’s like that, and Harry doesn’t know which way he prefers—on one hand, it’s much less frightening to wake up this way, but on the other, the fear is replaced by an unexplainable sense of melancholy.

Harry rolls over. It’s too early for this. It’s too _late_ for this.

He ends up falling over the side of the bed, legs dragging the mess of blankets and furs down with him. Something hard smacks against his face and tumbles to the floor—of course, it’s the book on spell activation sequences he’s been studying for Tom’s gloves. So he fell asleep while reading it. Figures.

Harry groans. Maybe this is a sign. Maybe this is a sign that he belongs on the floor, and he should just stay here for the rest of his days.

…But he can’t. There’s work to be done.

With a simple thought, Lethe comes to life again. It snuffles and skitters all around Harry’s body like the true dog…snail…slug…thing that it is. Harry snorts softly at the sight, but allows Lethe to do what it wants. A sprinkle of magic de-tangles his legs and now he’s one-hundred percent lying on the floor.

“Hey,” Harry calls. Lethe is in his arms faster than he can say ‘Master of Death.’ “You’re freezing, you know that?” He cuddles it anyway. It makes his smarting face feel better, at least—like a portable ice compress.

His dream—memory, more like—makes him think about things that he doesn’t want to think about. In all honesty, Harry’s been pretty lax. After he and Albus failed to discover the true mastermind behind the dragon pox incident, the realization that nothing could be done hit him like a whack on the back. He’s got no responsibility to do anything, hasn’t got a reason to be proactive, but.

If there’s one thing he’s learned from his old mentor, it’s to always have a backup plan. And Harry? Right now, Harry has a grand total of _zero_ backup plans.

Harry isn’t invincible. No one truly is, not even the Master of Death.

“Hey, Lethe,” he says, muffled by the lethifold in his arms, “If I know I’m going to make a bad life decision, would still doing it make me stupid?”

Lethe squeaks at him. Harry pauses and then pulls away.

“Was that you?”

It ‘tilts’ its head at his question, antennae bobbing. Then it squeaks again.

“Okay, clearly I know _nothing_ about lethifolds,” Harry mutters. “Aren’t they supposed to be silent hunters? Did you always make noise? Or, wait, don’t tell me—you slept for a year and you got a personality and _vocal chords_. Does this happen with all bonded weapons?”

Lethe snuffles, then it crawls over his face to nuzzle into his hair. Harry huffs.

“You’re lucky I have more important things to do than study you,” he warns it. “And I guess you’re pretty cute. That certainly doesn’t hurt.”

Harry sighs. “You know what, why am I even talking to you. If anyone’s going to stop me from making a bad decision, it’s obviously not going to be _my bonded weapon_. You’re practically me! Nope. I’m done with this. I’m going to go see Tom. He’s five times more useful than you.”

Lethe starts purring. Harry didn’t know it could do that, either.

“…Is that a yes?”

All of a sudden there’s a burst of black, and Harry yelps as he realizes The Lethifold had gone into cloak form without his command. The feeling of coldness disappears and the familiar floaty feeling takes over. He can feel his body and control his limbs, but the external input—like the texture of the floor and the brush of his clothes—is gone.

“I see how it is. You woke up and got an _attitude_ , not a personality. Next you’ll be demanding I share half of my bed, and then you’ll steal my pillows,” Harry grumbles. The gravelly modification to his voice destroys the beauty of his sass. Harry pouts because he can, and no one will see it.

“Lethe.”

The lethifold doesn’t change back.

“ _Lethe_. It’s either a yes or a no! You can’t have both.”

Harry sighs when the cloak doesn’t budge. “Fine. You asked for it. The Lethifold: _In_.”

Unable to disobey a direct command, The Lethifold returns to the symbol on his hand. Harry chooses to lie there for a moment more, feeling the cold hardwood flooring against his back and the chill of the house as it seeps into his toes.

He should really start wearing socks to sleep.

* * *

As it turns out, going to see Tom is also a bad life decision. Harry realizes this the moment he steps out the door and into the cold, frigid, one-in-the-morning air. The streets are pitch black, the sky is no better than a nightshade’s bud obscured by the clouds as it is, and there’s snow.

Great. Tom’s probably not even awake right now.

Harry goes anyway because it’s not like he can go back to sleep. If he sees a light under the door then he’ll knock, and if he doesn’t, then he’ll just turn around and go home. Or maybe he’ll get a drink at the bar—the Guild’s pub is open 24/7.

For some inexplicable reason, Tom is awake. Harry pauses, and then he sucks it up and knocks.

“…Harry?”

“Hi, Tom,” Harry says weakly. “Nice, er, night we’re having, huh?”

_Smooth, Potter._

Tom pulls him inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I agonized over this chapter. Seriously. But it just wasn't working, so now I'm predicting that this installment will be 4 parts instead of 3, switching to Tom's PoV before a switch back (at least, that's the plan).
> 
> I can't say it'll be as wild of a ride as _desperate times call for criminal measures_ , but we'll definitely be getting into some beef as Tom (unknowingly) gets real close to the Master of Death.......or at least, the woman who loved the Master of Death. This sure ain't no fairytale, folks.
> 
> *whistles innocently* angst? What? Noo....


	2. Chapter 2

Harry is a hard person to understand.

He shares his emotions easily, wearing happiness and sadness and insecurity like they’re passing fashion trends. Tom has little issue telling these minute moods apart; the trouble comes when he’s trying to understand them. Harry is secretive in the most infuriating manner—that is, not at all and all at once—so the application of reason or logic to predict his actions is frankly impossible.

Tom’s just better off not predicting at all, honestly.

So when Harry comes to his door at one in the morning, looking like he’s about to cry, Tom is very carefully not surprised. And when Harry tells him he needs these incredibly rare ingredients (that cost the price of a small village), Tom is taken off guard, but definitely not surprised. Then when Harry admits the adventure is potentially more dangerous due to varying factors, and that Tom should definitely say no if he’s got any essence of doubt—well, that’s the least surprising one, actually.

He doesn’t expect Harry to trust him in a day, or a week, or even a month. It’s a work in progress that Tom’s had to go through with each of his party members, and that’s okay.

The job—or at least, the first one—is this: explore the Amber Garden with a party (including Harry in disguise) and harvest ingredients Jewel Blossom, Tangleworm’s Root, Pixieseed, and Hallucinoil. The other jobs are similar; go to a dungeon with a party and allow Harry to collect materials.

As far as Tom knows, the ingredients have no rhyme nor reason (other than being quite expensive on the market), but considering Harry’s specialization, he supposes he’d be able to make use of anything. The dungeons are another matter—each of them are considered dangerous, and under normal circumstances, Tom wouldn’t even be allowed in with his two-star ranking. That’s where the party comes in.

As long as he’s in a party with a combined star ranking over a certain amount, he can go. The party also serves another purpose—Harry doesn’t need to say it; Tom already knows that going duo in those dungeons is like a death wish. It’s not only the monsters that are against them, but also the environment. They can win however many fights they want, but in the end, a well-balanced party is necessary for traversal.

“So, what exactly is this ‘disguise’ you’re wearing?” asks Tom. If it involves Harry, of course he’s interested.

“Ah…” Harry trails off for a moment. “I was actually thinking _you_ could choose for me, considering that, erm, you’ll have to play along…”

Tom admits the suggestion pleases him. “I assume you’ll be a sorcerer?”

Harry nods. “Of some sort. Either as a support or an attacker is fine with me—back-line or front-line. You can choose whatever you can best synergize with.”

Tom takes the offer seriously. He’s already gotten the sense that Harry’s used to filling positions, but giving the power to Tom so easily shows not only confidence, but a certain degree of dependency. Harry is willing to give Tom the tools he needs to work with him; that’s more of a partner relationship than employer-to-mercenary.

“I have some adventurer cards you can choose from. Needless to say, feel free to stereotype. That’s what they’re there for.”

Adventurer card _s_? Plural? Tom blinks. “Fake, or stolen?” he asks as they walk to Harry’s room.

“Most are, well, ‘fake,’ technically,” says Harry. “I’m not all about that identity theft life, you know—” and then, he laughs. “At least not identity theft without permission. But I guess that would be more like borrowing? Erm, don’t worry about getting caught. They’re all dead, anyway.”

Ominous, and intriguing. Tom watches as Harry reaches beneath his bed and pulls out a box about three shoeboxes big. He lifts the lid, and all Tom sees are adventurer cards—at least a dozen, max twenty. He knows, of course, the use one or two extra cards can provide, but a pile of them? Isn’t this a little overkill…

“Have at it,” Harry says, handing the box to Tom.

Tom takes a seat on the bed and does.

He quickly notices that there are more _female_ cards than male. They’re across all sorts of races—elven, goblin, dryad, human, werebeast…the list goes on. And he notices that they’re at varying star levels as well. Some are as low as four, while some are as high as thirteen.

“It’s easier to hide when they’re looking for someone of another sex,” Harry says when he notices the furrow in Tom’s brow. “One of my mentors taught me that. She insisted I knew how to move like a woman.”

“Did they insist you take acting classes?” Tom asks.

Harry grimaces. “Something like that—more like etiquette, court behavior, speech—” he makes a vague gesture, “—boring stuff, really. Useful, but boring. I prefer to ignore them as much as I possibly can.”

Tom snorts. “I’ve noticed.”

“ _Hey_. Are you calling me ill-mannered?”

“You said it, not me,” says Tom. “But no, I meant…you act free, is all.”

Harry grumbles, though he doesn’t look very upset. He splays out in a more comfortable position, belly down on the bed with his head supported by his arms. There’s something easy about the way he kicks back his feet and curls his toes. Below his hanging feet is the gentle slope of his backside, which is conveniently in Tom’s direct line of vision.

“Found any that you like?”

…Maybe not so convenient. Tom makes a noise of acknowledgement as he returns to flipping through the cards. “Support, high star count. That would simplify finding a party.”

Harry agrees. “I’ll be counting on you for offense, then.”

“Naturally.”

Finally, Tom finds one that he thinks stands out. First it’s the star count that interests him—fourteen stars? He has no doubt that Harry can display the skill of a fourteen-star, but it’s still startling to see it on a fake adventurer card. Tom’s original card, Voldemort’s, was also a fourteen-star, quickly on his way to a fifteen-star.

 _Luna Faenglow_ , the name reads. She’s elven, dressed in the diaphanous garb of a sorcerer. There’s the usual elven beauty to her face—delicate and otherworldly, hair spun from gold, eyes blue with calm indifference. There’s no resemblance to Harry at all.

Something about her unnerves him.

“This one,” Tom says, because no matter how strange Luna Faenglow is—if that is, in fact, her real name, or what used to be her name—she does meet all his criteria. A fourteen-star support is guaranteed a party, tag-along two-star or not. Not only that, but she’s an elf, and Tom is not above using an elf’s allure to get his way.

Play to the stereotype? What better stereotype is there than the charming female support?

“Ah,” Harry says, sitting up to take the card. He smiles, and it’s a little sad. “Alright. Suppose you just want to see me be a woman?”

When Tom smirks back, Harry isn’t looking at him. The smirk falls off his face. “Indulge me.”

“I should still have that dress _somewhere_ in my trunk,” Harry says, absentmindedly running his hands through his hair. “Hmm.”

The box is slid back under the bed. Tom relaxes against Harry’s pillows as he watches him dig through his things. It’s a good view. Harry’s always a good view, one that Tom rarely has a chance to sit back and enjoy.

The sweater slouches on his form and hides an undoubtedly even better view, but Tom can appreciate the way it makes Harry look…small, unassuming. It’s the appeal of a wolf in sheep’s clothing—dramatic irony: _he_ knows how capable Harry is, but no one else would. Besides, green is a good color on him. It’s better than that offensively red-and-yellow turtleneck he wore the other day.

“Hey, catch.”

Harry flings a cloak at him, which Tom snatches out of the air no problem. It’s velvet white and long enough that it’d brush the floor, even with his height. Tom sets it aside just quick enough to catch a set of cloak fasteners next. There’s a copious amount of magic clinging to both items.

“Hmm, where did I put that dress again? Um…”

Tom blinks. The trunk’s swallowed up half of Harry’s body already. For a moment, he’s convinced Harry’s about to fall in—both of his feet are up off the ground, his sweater succumbing to gravity as the slightest bit of skin peeks out over the top of the chest—

“Harry, how many sets of female clothing do you have?” It’s a casual question.

Harry shouts back: “A lot. I’m a bit of a pack rat. Never know when you might need something, you know? Ah, found it!”

Harry tosses a white dress his way next, though it lands a little ways off on the mattress instead. Just by looking at it, Tom knows that Harry’s casual treatment would’ve given a great majority of women heart attacks. It’s a dress worthy of a dragon’s hoard, trimmed in gold and pixie-dust lace. Elf clothes, Tom thinks, definitely elf clothes.

Elves are unanimously considered the best-dressed race. Some scholars—of which Tom doubts their repute—hypothesize that their powers increased a proportional amount to the quality of their clothes. It certainly doesn’t help the matter that most adventuring elves show quite a bit of skin—nature creatures, they are, mostly of the forest and earth.

Still, the dress Harry’s picked out most likely costs a small fortune. Bellatrix, Tom thinks, would know. Her guilty pleasure was shopping for high-end clothing: an elf at heart when placed in the marketplace. Of course, she was also a brutal assassin who tended to get blood on most of her outfits, so that might explain away her poor shopping habits.

The magic on the dress is no more than most top tier sorcerer robes, so Tom assumes that Harry’s choice is more for aesthetics than any secret weapon.

Wait—now that he thinks about it—

Tom takes another look at the adventurer card. It’s a bust shot, which means he can’t see much of her clothing, but the dress she’s wearing kind of looks like—

He compares it to the trim of the dress. It’s exactly the same.

“Do you have a set of clothes for all your identities?” Tom asks.

“Huh? No,” replies Harry. He brushes himself off before he walks back over. “Not really. This was Luna’s favorite dress, though. I figured she’d appreciate it if I wore it for her.”

 _They’re all dead anyway_ , Tom remembers. Yes, all dead, but their relation to Harry still matters. The past cannot be changed, but it holds sway over the present nonetheless. Tom stares at the card in his hands.

 _Luna Faenglow_.

Tom’s question comes quiet, if not a little too loud. “Who was she?”

Harry smiles. “A very dear friend of mine. For a while, she was my travelling companion. She was young for an elf, but her health was quite poor. I couldn’t save her.”

With slow movements, Harry makes some space for himself on the bed so he can sit, too. “Luna wasn’t a sorcerer—not in the conventional sense. Her magic was highly specialized, and that led to many assuming she was a mundane. It disabled her, as much as it was her key to survival. Well, she was one hell of an archer, as most elves are. When she…passed, she gave me permission to use her skin, her appearance, to hide.”

“She knew you,” Tom says.

Harry shakes his head. “She knew me as her master,” he says, resigned to a sorrow of the past. “Harry Potter was not even a name to her.”

Master. _Master_. Tom hands back the card, if only because he understands the implications enough to know how sensitive of a topic this is. The elven race is a naturally fair race—skilled enough, peaceful enough, humanoid enough to draw others to lust. The Elven Slave Trade is a dirty secret of the world—illegal in many kingdoms, still occurring in many more.

With Harry’s heart, it isn’t too difficult to come up with a story. He wonders if Luna owed him a life debt, and then Tom thinks that’s a stupid thought, because of course she probably did.

“Did all those people give you permission?”

Harry hums. “A kindness for a kindness,” is all he says. “I have a lot of reasons to hide, Tom.”

Tom thinks back to Dumbledore, threatening and immutable. Three people in the world know the truth, and he is quite nearly the fourth.

“Are you asking for mine?”

Harry laughs—not so bright, not so dark. “Oh no, I have no doubt you have your own sea of troubles. You have a lovely face, Tom, but I prefer seeing it rather than wearing it.”

How macabre. And yet, Tom's heart beats as if it has never truly beaten before. He knows he has a lovely face, of course; he’s been told so by many people. But hearing that from Harry, who he has never once heard a word of admiration from—

“An old mentor gave this one to me,” Harry continues, lifting the white cloak he’d thrown earlier. “Her specialization was shapeshifting—not illusion, but transfiguration. It allows me to take on another form, as long as I’ve got the right material.”

“Material?” Tom asks, and then his gaze flickers down to the fasteners. “Those, you mean.”

“Good eyes,” praises Harry. “More specifically, it’s these.” He picks up the cloak clasp and attaches it, tapping the luminous blue stones.

Their aura is unlike anything Tom’s ever seen—quickly becoming a common occurrence around Harry—it pulses exactly like a heartbeat, but there’s no structure to the misty layering, unlike the usual runic spell work that Harry does. If Tom was being silly, he would’ve guessed that they were alive…

“It’s old magic,” says Harry. “Very old. Think ‘Scotia was still part of Britannia’ and ‘Britannia wasn’t even a kingdom yet’ old. Fortunately, most of my mentors have a love of the esoteric. They’re called essence stones.”

Certainly powerful and mysterious, but… “They don’t seem much of use.”

Harry hums. “You’re not wrong. Their original purpose was in burials; it was part of the ceremony to bury the deceased’s essence stone with them. They don’t seem very useful because their purpose wasn’t to be of use—it was to give the living peace of mind. But you know, it’s human nature to find a use for things, so that’s exactly what my mentor did. Are you familiar with polyjuice potion?”

Tom is. Barty is an impressive user of it—for all the most disturbing reasons, but.

“Combine essence stones with this cloak and you get about the same effect, except the person you’re cloning doesn’t have to be alive, and you don’t have to take another dosage.”

He can think of at least ten different uses for that on the spot.

Harry seems to follow his thought process, because he shoots him a look and says, “Naturally, this is a secret.”

“You have a lot of secrets.”

Harry laughs. “Most scholars do. Sometimes the result of your curiosity makes the world a better place, and sometimes it doesn’t. The choice to release your discovery for purely intellectual reasons can be the most selfish choice of all.” He averts his gaze to the floor and then quietly adds, “Albus taught me that.”

The beginnings of an ominous hypothesis have already spread their roots inside Tom’s mind. “And were most of your mentors scholars?”

“Arguably, there’s a scholar inside each and every one of us.”

Perhaps that’s true. Bellatrix was scholarly in her approach of murder and pilfering. Fenrir turned tracking into a field of study. Tom was half sure Barty studied people for a living—

How long ago, that life was.

“A party member of mine would’ve loved to meet your mentor,” says Tom, eyes flickering to the cloak.

Harry smiles at him, and Tom feels his heart sigh. Everything’s comfortable again. Then Harry wraps the white cloak around his shoulders, fastens the clasp, and breathes. It happens in a blink of an eye—one moment it’s Harry standing there, then in the next it’s Luna Faenglow, dressed in Harry’s green sweater and Harry’s loose trousers and _she should not be in Harry’s clothes_.

Tom tries to stamp down on that irrational surge of fury, but it’s hard. It’s made even more difficult when Luna tilts her head and smiles before saying, “Tom?”

Harry says it. Tom knows that’s Harry. It’s said with the exact same inflection he usually uses, and logically speaking, Luna Faenglow’s dead anyway. Still, it’s not Harry’s voice—it’s feminine, airy, slow…the voice of an angel come to gouge off Tom’s ears with her sweetness.

The picture doesn’t do her justice. Her eyes are blue, yes, but faded like a well-loved tunic. The sheen of her hair is inhuman, as well as the pointed tips of her ears that are so, so real now—no longer a tiny picture on an adventurer card, he sees a level of detail that explains just why Luna unnerved him so.

Her face is pointed in his direction. One eye sees through him, the other does not see him at all.

“They took her sight away,” Harry explains in Luna’s lackadaisical speech. “I found her in time to return one, but the other was lost.”

“Can you see?”

She approaches. Tom tenses— _but it’s Harry, but it’s Harry,_ says his brain; _but it’s not, but it’s not_ , says his body. Then his eyes tell him what his instincts could not understand. Harry’s magic is familiar, and it brushes comfortingly against his arms.

“Through her eyes, not mine,” says Harry. “Ah, but a quick illusion can at least fix my appearance. A half-blind support wouldn’t be very popular now, would it?”

He waves his hand. Magic congregates toward his face, and when Tom blinks again, Luna’s eyes no longer rattle him. Even the seeing eye has some minor edits to it.

Harry extends a hand. Tom, despite his dislike of Harry’s current guise, takes it. It’s a callused hand, but not Harry’s, so he knows his previous words to be true—this is a copy of Luna Faenglow’s body, not an illusion. Barty would’ve adored this cloak.

“So, what do you think?”

 _Barty_ would’ve adored this cloak, but all Tom wants to do is rip it off Harry’s shoulders—well, if he could see it. His actual feelings toward Luna Faenglow range from uneasiness to dislike, along with a good helping of reluctant empathy. But. Luna Faenglow in Harry’s clothes? Harry _as_ Luna Faenglow? That ramps up everything to straightforward animosity.

Unfortunately, Harry is comfortable in her skin, and she’s just what they need. Tom can be professional.

“It’ll do,” he says. “Have you already thought up a story for us?”

“Ah, well, it’s a little odd for an elf to be friends with a human…”

Tom hums. “Am I your suitor, then?”

Harry flushes. It would’ve looked a lot better, Tom mutinously thinks, if the blush hadn’t been on Luna’s face.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“How do you figure?”

Harry coughs. “You. Um. You look like you'd rather kill me than kiss me.”

…Professional. Right. Tom fixes his expression and very carefully tries to use the same tone that he usually does around Harry: flirtatious, with a quick dash of wit. Perfectly professional. He can do that. He’s flirted with people he’d rather behead before; this should be no different. “Is that a challenge, darling?”

Harry frowns, only it’s not a Harry-patented frown because it’s _with Luna’s face_. “We could use someone else, you know.”

Ah, and there it is. Harry knows him better than he thinks he does. “I don’t think my reaction would change much,” Tom says. “Besides, I’m perfectly capable of acting. Unless you doubt me?”

“No, no; you’re good, you’re good. But, um.”

Tom sighs. “I’m a friend-of-a-friend recommended to you by your alchemist acquaintance. We’ve done jobs together before. You’re shy, I’m protective—alchemist’s orders.”

Harry slowly nods. “Don’t call me ‘darling,’” he tells him, and Tom knows that he felt it, too.

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luna is really, really dead, I promise you.
> 
> Anyway, I'm still predicting 4 parts, but it might extend to a 5-parter if the next one gets really long. Be prepared for anything *shrug*.
> 
> Fun fact: _Amber Garden_ is a legit dungeon in Recettear where the elf adventurer, Tielle, can be found. None of the items mentioned are game items.
> 
> Next chapter, look forward to more worldbuilding and maybe some of Tom learning about the part of Harry that he doesn't know, aka the MoD.


	3. Chapter 3

Adventuring is a full-time job, but the job it pertains to varies.

Tom, for the most part, has been taking on quests and dungeon diving with Harry. He gets hired for a job, and then he gets paid for it. Quests can be hunting quests, searching quests, investigation, escorting, surveying… Anything that has to do with monsters can be turned into a quest.

When he was adventuring as Voldemort, he was dungeon diving with his party—no one hired them or came along; they just went, conquered, took the valuable loot, and moved on to the next.

Both types of jobs are financially unstable, but payment comes a little differently. The latter doesn’t have to go through the Adventurer’s Guild, but the adventurers have to sell their loot on their own. How much they can get for the things they find is entirely dependent on the market and their skills.

Another part of adventuring is, of course, training. It isn’t odd for makeshift parties to form in front of popular dungeons. These parties dungeon dive, yes, but their main goal isn’t the items they find; it’s the experience. For adventurers, training is considered an investment. The stronger they get, the more likely they can go to more profitable dungeons or take on high-paying quests.

Amber Garden is one such training dungeon. The items found there range from common to extremely valuable, but the difficulty to obtain those items are proportional to their worth. Training, then, is the main focus. Amber Garden is notorious for its dangerous environment, so much so that there’s a star requirement to enter.

Long ago, the dungeon used to be a prosperous Elven village. However, for one reason or another, it was abandoned, and monsters quickly filled in the vacancy. The plants that the elves had grown also grew and spread, giving Amber Garden its name. Only a quarter of the challenge is the monster population. The other three quarters are the aggressive plants, many able to kill unsuspecting adventurers.

“Tom,” Harry says, tugging on his sleeve. He’s in his full Luna Faenglow guise, dress and all. “It’s our turn.”

Tom inclines his head, and they step through the teleportation gate together after Harry pays the fee. That was what initially tipped Tom off to the importance of these ingredients—teleportation gates are expensive, and it doesn’t look like Harry’s expecting a return on his losses, either.

They end up at the entrance to Amber Garden. It’s more like a large clearing with stalls and shops set up, other adventurers milling about or looking for teammates. Some blacksmiths have set up camp off to the side— _10% DISCOUNT ON WEAPON REPAIRS_ , one sign reads. Across from them is a food stall, the delicious smell causing a small crowd to form.

Harry doesn’t even spare the place a glance. When Tom looks over to him, Luna’s face is as serene as a cloudless sky, but beneath that mask, who knows what sort of expression he’s wearing? Tom wants to say something—anything to get a ‘Harry-like’ reaction, check if his friend is really in there, but that’s unprofessional. Amateur. He doesn’t.

They walk—stroll, more like—their feet steady upon the uneven earth. Already, ‘Luna’ is getting glances; the curious, the wanting, the calculating and the appraising…they’re the target of all sorts of gazes, and Tom tallies them all. That’s his job right now, because the minute Harry became Luna, Tom was put in charge.

He shifts closer so their shoulders brush. Then, Tom turns his head just the slightest bit and glares.

Some gazes cow away. Others persist, and more still measure and weigh. They’re unfamiliar adventurers here. No one knows them, no one’s seen them.

Funny what a bit of armor, or lack thereof, can do.

Eventually, Tom picks a gaze he feels is neither dangerous nor passive. It comes from a party of four—at least one tank, based on his heavyset armor, and one sorcerer, based on his clothes. He doesn’t recognize any of their faces either, so Tom considers that good enough. He nudges Harry.

Harry looks over at them. Smiles. The one in the sorcerer’s robes looks like he’s about to combust.

After a little bit of chatting, both he and Harry join their party. Tom doesn’t bother to remember their names past introduction; if this group doesn’t work out, they’ll just find another one. ‘Luna’s’ résumé has certainly garnered interest with the other eavesdropping adventurers.

* * *

On the battlefield, Harry supports just like he attacks. All of his movements are deft; there’s not a single second wasted, not a single spell cast that doesn’t meet its target.

What’s even more impressive is his self-restraint. During the dragon pox incident, he and Harry had fought together side-by-side, Harry using what Tom assumed was the full extent of his capabilities. Now, Harry limits himself solely to supporting. Shield magic, healing magic, recovery magic, defensive magic, earth magic—regardless of the fact that fire would be super effective, he only sticks with what he claimed to know.

That sort of control tells a lot, Tom knows. Harry’s magic washes over him in the form of a speed boost, and he rolls out of the way of a lashing vine. Harry’s done this before: he limits himself to roles, fills in the places of a party where he’s needed. No wonder he feels comfortable everywhere. For a person who plays every role at the same level of skill, any preference he might’ve had must’ve been long done away with.

“Shield!” the tank commands, but before he’s even finished saying the word, Harry’s already done it. They’ll learn in time that Harry doesn’t need orders—he just needs information.

At least, this sort of nonstop skirmish helps take Tom’s mind off the situation. There’s no room for misunderstanding—Harry’s magic is Harry’s; therefore, Harry is here. He doesn’t have to look at Luna’s face, doesn’t have to try (and fail, disturbingly enough) to read Harry as he usually does.

This is fine.

Seeing an opening, Tom charges forward and gets a clean seven consecutive strikes off. The tangled mess of vines shudders and droops, but there’s still a little bit of fight left in it. He smoothly retreats to dodge the counter and then plans a second attack, but Luna’s voice stops him.

“Ah, this is good enough for harvesting,” Harry says.

The party, previously informed of their ingredient hunting, also pauses.

“Are you sure?” asks the other swordsman.

The female scout chimes in with a, “Yeah, it’s still alive—”

“Y-yes. Killing it would make the roots decay.” Just like that, Harry strides forward. Revolving walls of earth and rock block any attacks the tangleworm can try.

“Could you strike there for me, please? At this distance is fine.”

Tom inclines his head. He’s about to send a burst of power toward the base of the plant, but the sorcerer lands a fireball there instead, completely ignoring the fact that Harry asked Tom, not him. Or maybe not so much ignored, but fired first because of it.

Oh, Tom thinks with no small degree of satisfaction, Harry won’t like that.

Harry doesn’t. He turns his head around just enough so the sorcerer can see Luna’s beautiful, disappointed face. “Please don’t use any fire magic right now. It will damage the root.”

Any self-respecting sorcerer would know that, especially right after Harry said _not to kill it_. The sorcerer flushes red in embarrassment and stutters out an apology.

“It’s alright. The ground should’ve mitigated some of the damage, but please don’t do it again. I don’t want to put everyone’s hard work to waste.”

After that, how can the sorcerer continue apologizing? He can’t, and Harry doesn’t pay him any more attention as he turns back to the tangleworm. It may be Luna’s body that Harry is using, but he uses the same cues, so Tom doesn’t wait for him to ask again and thrusts forward with his rapier, sending a powerful burst of energy at the magic surrounding its base.

And he’s praised for it.

“Nice aim,” Harry remarks. _Good eyes_ , he would’ve said. Tom hums.

The tangleworm pulls back all its vines and curls up into a defensive ball. Like he was waiting for this, Harry tugs at his sleeve. “You might want to stand back a bit, for safety.”

Tom moves back.

Once Tom’s standing in line with the tank, Harry lifts both his hands, sleeves swishing at the movement, and casts a murmured spell. The earth surrounding the tangleworm’s base gradually begins to shift away, but Tom knows that Harry can do it faster. Someone who effortlessly pulled a rock slab with just a flick of his hand wouldn’t struggle with something like this.

Harry’s putting on a show. His arms tremble. The leather of Luna’s tall white boots creases as he digs his feet into the ground. And then, the earth moves.

“Is that a giant worm?” asks one of the party members.

It does, in fact, appear to be a giant worm, pink and plump. Its head—or at least, Tom assumes that to be its head—wriggles as if it’s wondering where all the dirt’s gone. Harry doesn’t give it much time to find out.

“ _Pierce_ ,” he intones, thrusting his palm out. His revolving earth shield transforms into sharpened stone missiles and flies toward the worm. The blow lops a good half meter of the worm clean off, spewing questionable fluids where the body has been severed.

The tangleworm plant shudders and fully retracts. It looks no better than a mess of rope now, like something stuffed at the bottom of a crate for the longest of time. None of its vines move, and the half of the worm that’s still connected to it pulls back into the earth, never to be seen again.

“Amazing,” murmurs the fire sorcerer of the party. “So that’s what the roots look like… I never knew!”

Tom’s not sure whether he’s speaking the truth or just trying to flatter the elven beauty. Either way, Harry ducks his head and says a quick, “It was nothing,” before hastening to collect the tangleworm’s root.

“So this is the power of a fourteen-star, huh…”

Amateurs, the lot of them. Harry’s impressive—he always is—but this little act is the norm for dedicated harvesters. Marketprice for Tangleworm Root is twenty galleons; it’s a quality ingredient, but not on the level of Ghost Bark, and definitely not Megaflora Honey’s equivalent.

If Tom had his party, dungeon diving Amber Garden would be a simple matter. Harry wouldn’t have to disguise himself; hell, he wouldn’t even have to lift a single finger, just focus on harvesting…

“It was fortunate that we ran into this tangleworm,” says Harry, soft and shy. He turns around and sends the four others a certified elven smile. “Thank you for the assistance.”

“Not at all,” the tank leader replies. “Your support magic is a big help. We’d feel guilty if you didn’t get anything out of this, too!”

Their highest star count isn’t even thirteen. Harry was practically a goddess to them. Tom resists the urge to sneer and instead comes to stand next to him.

“Thanks for the help, Tom,” Luna says, personally and earnestly staring up at him.

They’re supposed to be partners. He’s not supposed to glare at his partner. Still, Luna’s face looking at him like that…his knee jerk reaction is ‘ _Too close. Annoying. Get her away from me_.’ That’s not quite enough to make him drop his act, but then the memory of Luna Faenglow in Harry’s clothes hits him like a truck, and. That. That is not okay.

Then Harry touches his arm, magic light on his fingertips. Ah, his body seems to say, it’s Harry.

“You’re welcome.”

The fire sorcerer makes a nearly inaudible noise of discontent, but both his and Harry’s hearing is good. Tom ignores him, but Harry turns shy and his touch becomes a tug as he comes to hide in Tom’s shadow.

“Well,” their scout begins, clapping her hands, “I’ll go check ahead. Where to, boss?”

Like Tom said before, _amateurs._ The leader’s reply is not immediate, so Tom cuts in to say, “We’ve been on the ground floor for a while. Since we can handle these monsters, how about we head up?”

The sorcerer bristles at his unsolicited suggestion, but the tank nods amiably. “Good idea. We’re not training if we don’t push ourselves, and since we have such a dependable support… Well, what do you think, Luna?”

Still holding onto his arm, Harry says, “Ah… It should be fine, yes. The other ingredients I’m looking for are also…up… I-I can cast some recovery magic first?”

“Please.”

* * *

The only remnants of Amber Garden’s elven population are the bridges and ladders disappearing up into the trees.

The pathways are large enough that they don’t have to walk along single file, but it’s still dangerous. The further up adventurers go, the more powerful the plants seem to get. Flying monsters are a given. Getting knocked off would result in death for the unlucky and permanent disability for the luckier—neither option is preferable.

Regardless, no one goes to Amber Garden to stay on the ground, so they ascend.

It’s bad for their formation, but Harry sticks with Tom under the excuse that he’s not comfortable with anyone else—namely, the back-line that keeps flirting with him. Tom is uncaring. They hold hands and act like it’s completely normal.

(It’s not. Definitely not. Tom is okay with this.)

“Hallucinoil comes from hallucifruit,” Harry is telling him, voice one tick above a mumble. “The hallucifruit blossoms release a sweet scent that causes hallucinations. It’s rather strong; for a mature hallucitree, its range can be as far as 30 meters away. It’s mostly used in perfumes—in very small doses, of course—but, I’ll tell you a secret, I like to put it in my pies.”

“Your pies.”

“Hallucifruit is very tasty. Its texture is almost like a durian, and the hallucination effect isn’t present in the fruit. You could say that the fruit is the ‘antidote’ to the scent. And if you mix it with the meat of a ghost gourd, you can make a pumpkin pie that tastes like Bott’s Every Flavor Jelly Beans—only instead of every flavor, it’s more like every flavor of squash, and instead of jelly beans, it’s every bite of pie—”

Tom laughs, soft. “So why do you want the oil if you’re enamored with the fruit?”

“I’m not enamored!” says Harry. “I just thought. Well.”

“Well?”

Harry ducks his head and squeezes his hand. “I was just thinking that I enjoy sharing things with you. At first I get really scared, but then…well, I realize it’s not as bad as my head makes it out to be. And. I just wanted. For every bad, I just wanted there to be a _good_ too, you know? So, so…”

Oh. Oh.

 _Oh_.

Harry is concerned about him. Harry is concerned about Tom because he can sense his unease, and now he wants to comfort him. By offering to make him a pie. That’s it, that’s Harry’s solution: Tom looking down? Bake the man a pie.

Shit, there’s no possible way anyone can be this adorable.

“You’ll make me some?”

Harry warbles a hum. “I thought we could do it together,” he says, choosing the absolute worst time to be shy. “U-unless you’re busy, then I mean, of course I can just—”

“If you want my time, you’re free to have it,” Tom says. “You do have my True Card. The only one in existence.”

“I like spending time with you,” Harry says quietly, “but only if you do, too.”

It’s probably a crime to _dis_ like spending time with Harry. At least that’s one law that Tom won’t be breaking any time soon. Instead of telling him that and making him even more flustered, Tom says, “You’re fine.”

There’s a minute relax, and then Harry is squeezing his hand again. “Sure? It’s going to be a long week.” _Like this_ , he doesn’t say. _Wearing Luna’s face. Dealing with mediocre party members. Not being able to talk like we’re used to—_

“I still want the pie, but yes, I’m sure.”

He laughs. “Okay. Let’s make some when we get back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cough* so instead of 4 parts, I'm now splitting this chapter --> this installment will be 5 parts instead!
> 
> Also please mind the tags for the next chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

Amber Garden’s carnivorous birds of prey are one of the main causes of death for new ascending adventurers. With little to no room for positioning on the bridges and ladders, it's difficult for an ill-coordinated party to fight off an experienced flock.

The party's rate of progression severely drops. They have to make constant rest stops, and Harry expends at least twice the amount of magic he'd been using on the ground level expressly for healing.

Nevertheless, Tom supposes, no one's died yet.

They're somewhere around floor 5 when night falls.

"We should find somewhere to rest," the tank says, peering around the trees. "Who knows what types of monsters come out at night."

"What about over there?" the scout offers. She points to one of the islands a bridge away. It's tall and off the beaten path; old trees have entwined their trunks to form something of a soft hollow there, perfect for a rest stop.

"Oh, nice find," the other swordsman says.

They make to move in the direction of the island. The scout is just about to step onto the bridge when Harry stops them.

"Wait, something's wrong."

Tom frowns. They briefly meet eyes.

It's Luna who turns to the sorcerer. "Do you mind casting fireball on the bridge?"

"You want to burn it? That seems kind of counterproductive!"

Harry ignores the scout. "Cast it, please."

The sorcerer only struggles with his indecision for a moment. He faces the bridge and casts a basic fireball spell towards its middle. But instead of setting the wood aflame, the spell flies right through.

The illusion shatters. Reeling, the scout squeaks and backs far away from what she now knows to be the edge of the island they're on.

"We must be close to a Hallucitree," Harry says. "They're rather rare on the 5th floor; we should quickly try and find it."

The scout looks horrified. The tank pats her shoulder, trying to comfort her.

"Isn't that dangerous?" asks the other swordsman. "It's already dark. We should be trying to find a place to rest instead."

"That's exactly what we're doing," says Harry. "As the saying goes, 'sweet dreams lie beneath the faenglow tree.' Haven't you wondered where those sweet dreams come from?"

Everyone else looks confused, but Tom catches on. "Hallucifruit blossoms."

"Yes," Harry says. "Not far from the Hallucitree is usually a Faenglow, and there's no safer place than that for a group of adventurers. The light from the Faenglow's bulbs is a relaxant; essentially, it turns monsters non-aggressive."

"Suppose we're in luck then," says the tank. "But how do we find it?"

"Carefully."

* * *

They manage to find the Hallucitree without losing any party members, and after Harry collects his Hallucinoil, they find the Faenglow tree not too far away.

The party sets about making camp for the night. Tom and Harry join them for a meal, but beg off the rest and find a spot a short distance away to settle in.

The Faenglow tree is only a tree in size—the approximate height of a willow. Its trunk is smoother, like a stalk of lemongrass, only with a width proportional to its size. Its limbs droop under the weight of its bulbs, some the size of fists and others the size of heads, each emitting a soft, orange glow.

They've settled directly beneath one, but much to Tom's surprise, the light doesn't blind their eyes. Whether its the effect of the Hallucitree some distance away or the Faenglow bulbs, he feels at peace and ready for a good night's rest. It doesn't even bother him that the shoulder resting against his is significantly slimmer and softer than Harry's should be.

"How dangerous," he murmurs.

As if he can read his mind, Harry says, "Isn't it? There's power even in the gentlest of magics."

Tom makes a noise in the back of his throat. A sudden thought occurs to him. "Faenglow," he says. "As in...?"

He hears Luna's soft, tinkling laughter, but there's a bit of Harry in it, too.

"I named her," Harry says, hushing himself. "Well, not completely. Her birth name was Luna Lovegood, and she didn't have even that when I found her. I asked her what she wanted to be called, and she gave me her first name, no family. So I named her."

The quiet with which he says it is deceptive. Tom thinks there's more to the story, a lot more, but then again, it probably isn't a story meant for bedtime, either.

"She was...something like…my...light, then," Harry says. "Light in the darkness. Cheesy, I know. I wasn't in a very good place, but she was there, and she chose to stay with me even when I told her she could leave. She reminded me a lot of this tree—a place where I could rest, without judgement. So I named her Faenglow. And she stayed with me, for the rest of her days."

As accomplished of a sorcerer as Harry is, Tom doesn't think he's _that_ old. "What happened to her?" he asks.

"She grew very sick," Harry softly reveals. "Maybe it was the combination of her time spent in that place and a naturally weak constitution, but...she grew very sick, yes. And I couldn't—not the rarest medicine on earth—not the strongest, purest magic in the world—no technique, no ritual, no prayer could save her. I searched and tried everything I could, but it was all for naught."

Tom stares at the bulb hanging above their heads and thinks even this plant, even as subtle and tricky as its defenses are, will meet an end. Power may be absolute, but death is inevitable. The only reality one can pursue is living life to its fullest—to live and die and live on in the annals of history. To be, truly, _Great_.

But for as many men and women who are written down in book after book, there are innumerable more that never make it to the page. And isn't that how Harry's gained all his identities? For in life, they may have been great, but in death, they were forgotten.

"Power is not meant to save," Tom says.

"Maybe not," Harry says. "Maybe not, but I'll do what I can. It's the least I can do. She...I learned that long before I met her, but she retaught me, I think, and I'm thankful for it. The world is a lot less dreary when you know how to put some good in it."

"'Put some good in it,'" Tom muses.

"By doing what you can."

Tom hums, and then lets his eyes slide shut. Beside him, if he listens close enough, he can hear the evenness of Harry's breath.

"Do you ever think," he begins, a long while later, "that you do too much?"

But Harry is already asleep, and Tom falls asleep soon after.

* * *

"Luna, is there any way we can take one of these things with us?" the tank asks the next morning. He's frowning, hand on his chin in contemplation as he eyes the Faenglow bulbs. "I've got to say, they're damn useful for a camp..."

Luna shakes her head. "I'm afraid not. Once the bulb is removed from the tree, both its glow and effect severely decrease. Besides, one bulb won't do much anyway, other than light the way for an hour or two."

"Bummer," mutters the scout. "It was a real pain to find, too."

Tom is noncommittal on their concerns. "We should get moving," he says instead.

He thinks he hears the sorcerer mutter something like, you're not the party leader, but there aren't any other complaints as everyone sets to packing up. Tom doesn't bother with them anymore and goes to wait next to the bridge with Harry, who turns to look over the expanse of forest.

Up here on the fifth floor, there's enough air space to overlook the canopy of the previous levels as well as look upward and see the underbelly of the next. Thick, monstrous tree trunks make up Amber Garden's main terrain, and the smaller though no less imposing flora grow wild, leaving no step untouched.

"Even among elves, this place is considered an ancient relic," Harry says. "And here, we're no better than ants."

"How far up does it go?"

"There are thirty floors—thirty-one, if you count the emergent layer, but there isn't an easy way to get up there. But I don't think there's any need to go so far," Harry sends a brief glance towards their party, "nor do I think we'd be capable enough."

Tom inclines his head. He agrees. "You need...Pixieseed and Jewel Blossom left? Where are they?"

"I don't know," Harry admits. "They're rare. Jewel Blossoms especially. I've heard most people find them from the fifteenth floor onward, but there've been some sightings as low as the seventh floor. And Pixieseeds...you find them attached to some species of birds. It's all up to chance, really."

"Sounds troublesome."

Harry smiles wryly. "Well, they've got to justify their price tag somehow."

Their conversation ends as the rest of the party joins them. Fortunately, they're not completely incompetent—the departure from the Faenglow signals a call to hyper focus as monsters and plants return to their aggressive state. There's no glaze to their eyes. Everyone knows that to ascend to the fifth floor and beyond means the greater the danger.

It takes an entire day to reach the sixth floor, and a day and a half to reach the entrance point for the seventh. The original paths that would've allowed them to easily ascend floor by floor have long since been eroded with time, or are guarded so jealously by ancient beasts that no one dares to try.

This particular 'entrance point' is actually a large, thick vine that wraps around one of the giant tree trunks, forming a sort of ramp to the next floor. There's only enough space for them to comfortably walk single-file. They'll have to circle the tree trunk at least twice on their journey up, and if the ascent is too steep, there's the possibility of slipping and falling to their deaths.

But adventurers are accustomed to these sorts of paths. It's not the worst Tom's been through by far, so he doesn't hesitate to climb on. The scout has gone first, then the tank, the other swordsman, Luna, the sorcerer, and finally, himself. With their healer in the middle, they should be fine getting attacked on either side, but the flying monsters are a whole other dilemma.

They'll just have to pray they aren't noticed.

They're about halfway through when the scout makes a hiss of alarm.

"Leaf Bird!"

Tom, at the back, can't see it, but he's encountered them before. They're forest creatures, perfectly camouflaged as their entire bodies seem to be made of leaves. Their appearance has misled a fair share of unprepared adventurers—as weak as they look, they're very much carnivorous, and have a whole cavern of teeth hidden in their beaks.

And there's never just one Leaf Bird, either. The rest of the flock is usually milling about nearby.

"It's right on the path," the scout says, groaning.

"Tweet," goes the Leaf Bird. A ripple moves through the party as someone in front takes a step back.

"What do we do? Kill it?"

"That'll bring the rest of the flock over," says Tom.

"So just kill it before it calls them!" the sorcerer says. "It's weak to fire. Let me through."

No one seems to have a better idea, so somehow the sorcerer precariously inches his way forward until he's right behind the scout.

"I-I don't think that's a good idea," Luna says. "If it calls—"

"Well, we just won't give it a chance to call its little friends." The sorcerer raises his hand and summons a blazing fireball with a muttered spell. "I can take it out with one shot. Yeah?"

The scout shrugs. "If you can, be my guest."

Useless, the lot of them. Bella could've slit that thing's throat in a second. And now they're giving a sorcerer an assassin's job? There's no way this can end well. Tom places a hand on Harry's elbow, beckoning him back. For a moment, Harry hesitates, but then allows himself to be pulled.

"I don't think he can do it," Tom murmurs.

"Neither do I," Harry whispers back. "Contingency plan?"

"Do you have one for getting out of here?"

The direction of Harry's gaze slides down, then back up. "Jumping."

Tom thinks about it. Then, he nods. "I can petrify the flock when they come. You'll have to get behind me."

"Alri—oh, there he goes."

The sorcerer finishes his incantation, sending the ball of fire flying towards its target. It hits, and there's not even a peep from the Leaf Bird as it's thoroughly scorched.

"Hah!" the sorcerer says. "See that? Easy pea—"

"Tweet!" the Leaf Bird says, then promptly faints and falls off the vine.

At least a dozen more tweets echo in reply. It's like the entire landscape turns to look at them as the previously camouflaged flock comes out of hiding. Then, completely in unison, they open their beaks wide and release an ear-piercing _screech_.

Tom can distinctly make out the small, white points of each and every one of their teeth.

The assault comes from all directions.

Harry instantly throws up a shield, but it's not enough. The Leaf Birds' beaks are like drills, all hammering away at his defenses with the fury of a swarm of wasps. Small though they may be, _combined_ they have all the strength of a battering ram.

Their precarious position isn't meant for a siege, either. It's inevitable: the shields go down, and it's a flurry of feathers and razor-sharp claws.

Tom pulls Harry close against him. A single sweep of his rapier takes out several of them, but there's practically no effect as replacements quickly fill in the gaps. The rest of the party isn't faring any better—the tank can't draw aggro, the sorcerer can't cast any wide-area spells without harming the rest of them, the other swordsman is equally useless, and the scout—

Tom can't see what's happening, but he hears the scout scream, and before he knows it, the others are calling her name.

She's fallen.

The sorcerer, the only one next to her, tries to grab her hand. It ends up unbalancing him, too, and…well. It's something of a chain after that.

At the same time as Tom finally manages to petrify most of the flock, Harry casts a feather-light spell on the falling members of the party. Whether they can survive what's below them is up to them. Tom doesn't see where exactly they fell; he's too occupied with what's in front of him.

The petrified Leaf Birds begin to fall like rocks, but there are still some left. He stabs two or three with one thrust, Harry takes out another, and he thinks they can actually make it out alive until—

In the distance, Tom can vaguely make out something flying towards them. No, not just _one_ something, but a _flock_ of somethings…

"There's more," Harry whispers, "Why are there more?"

"So," Tom says, "about jumping—"

"I've got a better idea. Hold on!"

Hold on to what?

Harry doesn't give him time to ask. All Tom feels is Harry's arms around his waist, his feet leaving the ground, and the world dropping before him—no, not dropping; _he's ascending_.

_They're flying._

They land—tumble, more like—on the next floor. Harry groans where he's cushioned against Tom's chest, and when Tom looks down, his vision is lit with the interlocked webs of Harry's magical residue. Normally, Harry's spellwork is the cleanest he's ever seen, but this is just...a frayed mess, like they'd been rolled in a pile of tumbleweeds.

"Ow," Harry says emphatically.

"Alive there?" Tom asks.

"Unfortunately. Flight magic is a delicate area of study, and I'm rusty." That said, Harry gets off of him and stretches. Tom can hear his bones crack. Harry grins, tired. "Really, really rusty."

"Most sorcerers would blow something up if they were, I quote, ' _really, really rusty_ '," Tom says wryly.

"I mean, I knew how it was supposed to work! Just…haven't practiced it in a while. Like a decade."

Tom stares at him. Harry shrugs sheepishly, then extends a hand to help him up.

Tom takes it. But Harry's balance isn't the best, so their combined weight sends them toppling to the ground again, this time with Tom on top. Tom _would've_ made a flirty comment about their position, but… Quite frankly, Harry looks exhausted.

"Are you alright?" he says instead.

"Dizzy," says Harry, scrunching up his face. "Sorr—"

"Tweet?"

They both freeze.

Slowly, Tom turns his head and looks behind his shoulder. There, innocently nestled in a bed of branches, was a baby Leaf Bird.

Just as slowly, Tom looks around. The nest the baby Leaf Bird is in is at the base of a much larger, looming tree. Many similar piles of branches are strewn across its niches and crannies, appearing well-lived in sans the fact that they're currently empty.

Down below, he can make out the soft beat of wings against air, accompanied by the endless chirping of a Leaf Bird flock.

Tom looks back at Harry. He's not looking at him—he _needs_ to look at him.

"Harry," Tom hisses, careful of his volume. The baby Leaf Bird chirps again. " _Harry_. We're in a—"

"Tom," Harry says, still not looking at him, " _Look_."

"What—?"

At first, he doesn't see it. He thinks Harry's just pointing to the baby Leaf Bird because he's a little slow on the uptake and hasn't figured out that if they don't get out of here in the next few minutes, they'll be royally screwed. The baby Leaf Bird innocently tilts its head, blinking at them as its beak clacks against a small seed it's carrying in its mouth.

"Look," Harry insists, tugging at the collar of his top. "In its beak—do you see that?"

"Harry, we need to get out of here. Do you or do you not want to live another day and collect your stupid—wait," Tom says, realization dawning, "What did you say you needed again?"

"Pixieseed," Harry breathes. "On the seventh floor. What're the odds?"

Tom has no idea, and he's not about to question it, either. He—slowly—gets up off of Harry.

"Let's get it and go, then. Any highly specific capture method for this one?"

"No—the hard part is finding it, basically," Harry says, more of an offhanded remark as he gets to his feet. The Leaf Bird clacks some more, and then ducks its head into its nest as it stirs the bedding there.

A thought comes to him. "We need to get it before it eats it."

But Harry is a step ahead. "Hold your breath," he says.

Tom does. He watches as Harry takes out a vial of the previously collected Hallucinoil and uses some sort of wind spell to waft a concentrated amount of the scent over to the Leaf Bird. As if it senses the shift in the air, the Leaf Bird glances up, only to blearily blink at them before falling back into the nest in a dazed heap.

Harry corks the vial again.

"Strong stuff. Definitely would not recommend sniffing this."

Tom only starts breathing once he sees Harry's magic create a draft that cleanses the air. "The Pixieseed?"

They find it in a mess of branches, bird down, and moss. Tom doesn't want to identify whatever else is in there. Harry seems to have a one-track mind; he carefully tucks it into a case wrapped in so many enchantments, it looks more like a ball of yarn than a box.

"Three down, one to go," he says, putting everything back into the pouch at his waist. "Alright, let's get out of—"

Something blocks out the sun.

Slowly, Tom turns to look behind them. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Harry doing the same, and for a moment, that's all they do: stare.

A flock of furiously protective Leaf Birds, however, are not particular fans of staring.

" _Run_!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *whistles innocently*
> 
>  
> 
> Leaf Birds © Trickster. They're honestly so adorable??? 
> 
> One of the reasons Trickster Online is my fave MMORPG ever is because the art is so cute;;;;;


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: BS hand-wavey magic stuff....................sorry to my physics friends

"—I think we'll be safe here for the night."

Tom makes a noise of agreement. They settle against the roots of an aging, looming tree, well-hidden in the niche dug out by time and erosion.

Still, they would take shifts tonight.

Harry strips himself of Luna's guise and Tom finally feels himself breathe easy. He should be worried that he'd spent this much time with a person—so much time that one look could assuage all the tension and stress built up during the day. But.

Honestly, that's the least of his concerns.

"You okay there?" Harry asks. Even a mess with dirt on his clothes and pollen in his hair, his smile's wry.

"Mm," Tom says again. "We should try and find a more reliable bunch next time."

"Oh? You're not afraid of being recognized?"

That was the first time Harry's ever hinted at Tom's previous life. Momentarily caught off guard, Tom doesn't answer.

Harry waits.

Finally, Tom says, "No, there's no danger of that."

And as if that was par for the course, Harry nods and says, "Okay."

It feels good to be trusted like that.

"Well," Harry says, starting up again, "I don't know about you, but I think we should probably try and get out of here."

"Oh? So you _don't_ want to be chased by a flock of angry Leaf Birds again? How about the swarm of Fire-Breathing Locusts? The Hurricanoplant didn't do it for you?"

"Ha ha," Harry says. "Surprised you didn't mention the Sword Star, considering it almost took your head off."

"Yes, well, the Phantom Weed almost took _yours_."

They commiserate in silence together for a bit longer.

Harry puffs his cheeks out and blows. "…If this is just how the seventh floor is like, I wonder how the thirtieth floor is."

"You've never been?"

Harry shakes his head. "Never had a reason to. It's—" he pauses.

Tom waits.

"It's kind of like…there are some places we're not meant to go, you know? It's not our place. Even for adventurers, there're boundaries."

"I didn't expect to hear that from you," Tom says, tilting his head to look down at him.

Harry looks back at him out of the corner of his eyes. "What do you think, then?"

"If we're able to go, why shouldn't we go? If we have a purpose, who's to keep us from fulfilling it? If we have power, the world is our oyster. Restrictions are for the weak. How are we to improve if we see a glass ceiling above our heads? That's what I think. It's not that impossibilities don't exist, it's that I have no interest in letting false impossibilities dissuade me. If you can't do what you want to do, then get stronger until you can."

Harry smiles. "How simple."

Tom doesn't take offense. He says, "I thought so too, when my mentor first told me. But it's rather quite nuanced. There is no threshold that says, _at this power level you can do such and such_ — _level up for more_ , no matter what the adventurer rankings would have us believe. And no one knows how strong is the strongest on earth. Old World Titans? Who's the strongest of them? No one knows."

"Isn't it impossible, then? To be the strongest?"

"It's a bit of a trick," Tom admits. "There really isn't any one way to tell, but power comes in different forms. As long as the rest of the world thinks you're the strongest, then you are, and that's power, strength, however you want to name it."

"Most people would call that influence."

"Certainly, that's a name."

Harry closes his eyes and hums. "I didn't expect to hear this from you," he says. "It's surprisingly…optimistic? Innocent?"

Tom glares. "And what exactly do you mean by that?"

"Well, the world is more than just us. Your eyes see it every day."

"Magic isn't sentient," Tom says on reflex.

"Hmm."

"It doesn't have a mind of its own. Sorcerers add their own intent and manipulate it. As you said, I see it every day."

Harry hums again inconclusively.

Tom turns away, a little ruffled despite himself. He supposes the conversation is over. But then, Harry speaks.

"If it was sentient, how would you get influence over magic?"

…Tom doesn't know.

"There's always someone stronger, Tom. Even if it's some _thing_. I think…well, I respect your teacher. His way of thinking isn't wrong. We should always seek to better ourselves. But the world is vast, and we aren't its only occupants. Sometimes, they don't appreciate us going where we shouldn't. It's important to respect that, too."

"You sound like you're speaking from experience," Tom says, and it comes out a little sharper than he intends.

Harry shrugs. "Oysters live in the ocean. If you want to go find one, you have to go hunting. Me—I'd just like to stay here on land. Home's a pretty great treasure on its own."

Before he met Harry, Tom would've disagreed, but he has now; he's had a taste of home and comfort and peace by routine. Settling down isn't that bad—a rest stop for the soul.

So instead of offering a retort of his own, Tom quiets and lets the subject drop. He's still a little miffed, but he can see Harry's point. To those who haven't experienced the joys of a home in a long, long time, home is a pearl of its own.

It's worth protecting, at the very least.

* * *

The thing is, they don't exactly know where they are. That makes getting out of here a rather difficult thing.

"How's the compass?" Harry asks.

Tom shakes his head. "Still not working."

"Bummer. We must be close to a magnetic plant." Harry squints. "But we've been close for a while. I wonder where it is."

"Know any?"

"There are quite a few in Amber Garden. I don't know any that are supposed to be on the seventh floor, though…"

Tom grunts. "Well, the compass won't work until we get out of its range. Are there any ways to tell what direction it's in?"

"Not that I know o—" Harry stops. Tom stops too.

He's…looking at him?

"Any plant that's emitting a magnetic field must be a magical plant," Harry says slowly. " _Magical_."

"Magical," Tom parrots. And then, it dawns on him. "Magical. We can find it."

Harry shakes his head. " _You_ can find it. Look, here, I'll show you what the signature should look like—you just have to find it and we'll go in the opposite direction."

Tom watches as Harry casts a contained example spell in his hand. He takes his time memorizing it, twists Harry's hand this way and that to see it from all angles. Once he thinks he's got the pattern, Tom nods and Harry lets the spell fall away.

The entire forest is a crisscross of magical webbing, but Tom finds it. The problem is, he finds it _everywhere_.

"What? Everywhere? You can't see if it's getting stronger in a particular direction?"

"No. It's equally spread across the ground."

Harry frowns and looks down at his feet. "There are…a few plants that might fit that criteria…"

"Something wrong?"

"It's just that—one of them could be—Jewel Blossom."

"…You want to find it."

Harry winces. "Is that bad?"

Well, it is what they came here for, and it is the last ingredient on their list. Tom sighs fondly. They should be focusing on getting _out_ instead of going further in. But does it really matter? They're lost anyway.

"You said they're rare on the seventh floor? We might as well."

Harry beams. "Thanks!"

"Don't thank me until we find it. For all you know, it could be some other plant."

"That's true. Okay, if it really is a Jewel Blossom, then..."

With Tom's eyes and Harry's encyclopedia-level instructions, they manage to triangulate the plant's location. Harry stops him from moving forward.

"Jewel Blossom," he says, and points.

The Jewel Blossom isn't exactly what Tom expected. In the middle of the clearing is a tall, round dome made of steel-like vines, forming something almost like a cage. The area around it is suspiciously devoid of foliage.

Harry picks up a rock and throws it. Immediately on hitting the ground, spears emerge from the dirt and pierce the rock right through its center. After smashing the rock to pieces, the spears—no, _vines_ —retreat, as if they had never been there in the first place.

They've dealt with plants before. They've dealt with vines before. The Moving Forest has given Tom a particular hate for dealing with sentient plants, and really, Amber Garden hasn't made it any better. However…

Compared to Mother Treant, the Jewel Blossom is _vicious_.

"High risk, high reward," Harry says. He doesn't look surprised. "There's a reason these things are crazy expensive."

"Is it…inside that thing?"

"The entire plant is the Jewel Blossom, but yes, its flowers are inside the dome. I guess you could say it has an 'iron defense'." Harry grins. Tom isn't laughing.

"In all honesty, I'm getting sick of plants that can kill you."

"Fair," Harry says. "You stay here. I'll go get it."

"And you're going to do that how?"

Instead of telling him, Harry shows him. He takes out the Tangleworm's Root, Pixieseed, a vial of Hallucinoil, and one of the Hallucifruits he'd harvested as well.

Harry holds up the Pixieseed and Tom sees him probe it with his magic.

"Wake up, little one," he murmurs. "I've got a task for you…and a nice reward if you're willing."

Tom watches as the once innocuous seed, no bigger than a sunflower seed, unfolds itself. The shell becomes wings, limbs, a head…

The pixie stretches its arms to the sky and yawns. It blinks up at Harry, expression curious even as its mouth stays pursed in a pout. Harry isn't dissuaded in the least and holds up the Hallucifruit.

The pixie's eyes immediately latch on to it. Tom can practically see it drooling.

"You can have this, but I need a favor," Harry says.

The pixie nods furiously.

Harry points at the Jewel Blossom's dome. "I need you to give _that_ some of _this_ —" he shakes the Hallucinoil, "—for me. Do we have a deal?"

The pixie looks from Harry, the Hallucifruit, the Tangleworm's Root, and then back to Harry. Then, it nods and flutters down to the root. Tom watches as it places a hand against the still wood and then phases out—no, _into_ it. Instantly, the Tangleworm begins to wriggle again.

"Did you know," Harry says casually, "that Leaf Birds aren't actually _birds_? Well, they are, but they're actually born from the leaves of a certain tree that grows here."

"…That's interesting."

"Isn't it? It's an oddity that only happens in Amber Garden. Some say it has something to do with ancient Elven farming methods—that they used to breed magical plants to _grow_ creatures that were half plant, half animal. There are a few other species of birds like this, actually, but Leaf Birds are the most common. And they're a _big_ favorite of Pixieseed."

"And let me guess, the fact that they're half plant is one of the reasons why?"

Harry grins. "Good guess. Pixieseeds are parasitic in nature. They latch onto magical plants and control them, and they're _especially fond_ of things that can fly—for good reason—but any old plant works as long as it's not very finicky. Normally, Tangleworm is too much for it, but since this is only the root and it's _dead_ anyway…"

Next, Harry takes out an eyedropper and fills it with Hallucinoil. He gives it to the Tangleworm's Root, which takes it with more care than Tom expected. So it really _is_ the pixie controlling it.

Tom watches as the Tangleworm's Root burrows into the ground and disappears from sight. The Jewel Blossom stays silent.

"The Jewel Blossom only attacks when someone enters the general vicinity of its dome, but even it has a weakness. Get past its outer roots and the only defense is that cage you see in the middle. Right below that is the Jewel Blossom's 'core', which generates the magnetic field interfering with our compass. That's the main body. Confuse that, and the roots stop sensing things."

Tom stares at him. He recounts all the ingredients they had to get and realizes Harry never explained _why_ they had to get them. Everything lines up so perfectly that he's got a good hunch why, now.

He says, "I don't think this is the conventional way to harvest Jewel Blossom, is it."

"Depends on what you consider 'conventional'. I didn't come up with it myself, if that's what you're asking, but it isn't known to the majority of ingredient hunters, either."

Harry smiles, but it's sad.

Tom doesn't keep asking.

When the Pixieseed finally comes back, Harry gives it its prize and tucks the Tangleworm's Root safely away again. The 'bars' of the dome in the middle have visibly relaxed, and Harry walks across the clearing with no issue. He slips between the vines and now, all there is left to do is wait for him.

It takes longer than Tom thinks it would. The pixie is unconcerned; however much Hallucinoil it'd given the core, the Jewel Blossom stays inactive.

Finally, Harry comes back. In his arms is a small, sleek ingredient chest.

"Here," Harry says.

Tom blinks.

"You've been hunting ingredients with me all this time… A walk through Amber Garden can't exactly be covered by your salary, either. So, here."

Tom takes it.

As an adventurer, it's important to have things of worth—treasure that even money has difficulty buying. People want wealth, but people who know a life outside the city want _value_ , and these are the people adventurers run into the most.

When he was Voldemort, Tom had no need of more treasures; he had a decent stock of them, and his party members were equally rich. They shared freely between themselves because the thought of parting never struck them. And then he lost it all, had it all taken from him, was stripped down to nothing but _'Tom Riddle'_ —

Tom opens the box.

True to its name, 'Jewel Blossom'—a flower made of crystal. It glints with the slightest touch of light, the apple of any collector's eye. The petals are delicate but are as tough as any thin sheet of diamond, and when he grasps the stem to hold it up, it feels like this single, tiny blossom weighs as much as a longsword.

"Use it well," Harry tells him.

Tom understands. He inclines his head and says, "Thank you."

"Hey, no problem."

* * *

The real significance of Harry giving him a Jewel Blossom isn't lost on Tom. Out of all the ingredients they've hunted, this _specifically_ is the one Harry thinks will be of worth to him.

Tom isn't a sorcerer. He can't use it as an ingredient, but what he can use it for is its _value_.

But this isn't the sort of thing you'd put up on the market. A Jewel Blossom is for bartering. Its worth is almost universally known. People who would desire to have one in their collection are countless, mostly nobles with a flair for the extravagant. This is about as close as he can get to a priceless item that appeals to a wide market.

Harry is giving this to him as insurance. It could save his life one day.

Tom knows exactly what he wants to use it for. It's a bit of a shame, could be a waste, but it'd undoubtedly provide him just that: _insurance_. Possibly his life.

He can't ignore his past forever.

They make it out of Amber Garden, and Harry dons his disguise for the journey home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND THERE WE HAVE IT, the final part to _mirror mirror hanging on the wall_! Wow that took me a really long time to crunch out. It was like pulling teeth with pliers *sweats*
> 
> The ending is ominous, you say? Oho. Ohohoho. Yes. If I don't stuff you with filler fluff, we'll be moving into some big reveals shortly.... >:3c
> 
> #rereout


End file.
